For many private service professionals, the recruitment agency is a vital piece of their job search. Employers frequently reach out the agency to list their positions, trusting them to make the best match based on experience, skills, and personality. However, not all of the candidates understand exactly what goes into that hiring process.

Check out the infographic to learn more about the multiple phases required to secure a top position in the luxury lifestyle management industry…

Within the corporate environment, companies invest significant dollars into making sure that their new employees will feel welcome, acclimate to the culture, and become effective in their new jobs. Considering that it can cost up to 50% of the person’s salary to replace them, a solid onboarding process is a valuable strategy.

However, within the home staffing environment, how to get your new employees up-to-speed may not be so clear cut. If you’ve never had private staff before, the challenge can be especially intimidating. How do you create an orientation plan when you don’t know what to expect?

Here’s some simple guidelines and tips to make sure that you and your new employee will be off to a great start:

1. Make time to meet with them on the first day

The first step to building a successful working relationship is to invest the time. Even if it’s just the first hour of their first day, greeting them personally lets your new household manager, personal assistant or staff member know that they are a valued edition to the team.

Without a doubt, the #1 aspect that employees look for in a private service job is a good personality match with the family. The best way to reinforce your family’s unique culture is to be there.

2. Have an orientation plan

We all want someone to step into a position and immediately know where everything is and how to perform the work. No matter how talented your new staff member or manager is, there will be a learning curve. It takes time to become familiar with a new location, from identifying the cleaning products to accessing the passwords for the personal calendars.

Create a plan to orient your new staff to cover these important questions:

Tour of the home or office and location of key components to their work

Regular schedules and appointments

Introduction to other staff members, especially if they will be supervising this person

Child or elder care essentials, even if they are not providing direct care to other family members: allergies, activities, schools, and doctor’s information

Communication plans: who to call in emergencies as well as preferred communication methods for less urgent matters

3. A clearly defined job description

Hopefully, you will have created a job description before hiring your new staff member. If not, be sure to do this critical step. This is your guideline for all parties involved so that expectations are clearly communicated on all parts. Remember, your new persona assistant or household / estate manager wants to make your life easier. The job description lets them know in no uncertain terms what their responsibilities are.

4. Setting boundaries

Personal boundaries can be a sticky area for new household employers. While your employee is here to support your lifestyle, realize that they do have their own lives as well. Don’t ask them to stay beyond their normal hours every single day. Don’t stifle their communication with their own family members. While it’s not acceptable for them to be on Facebook every moment of the day, they may need to be contacted in an emergency.

A common term in private service is “friendly but not familiar.” This means that while your staff is an important part of your household, they are not your family. Some households reinforce the personal boundaries by having their staff refer to them as “Mr. Smith” or “Mrs. Jones.” While a subtle difference, it can help maintain the professional nature of your new relationship.

5. Your own adjustment

If this is the very first time you’ve had staff, realize that this is not like the movies. It can be an adjustment to have someone new in your home or working closely by your side on a day-to-day basis. Do you treat them like a guest or a servant?

The answer is neither. While you are clearly the employer, remember that you need to communicate clearly to your new person. Sometimes they will have suggestions to improve the household operations. Listen to their voice of experience, but ultimately, the choice is yours. If you don’t like the way a task is being handled, speak to them about it. Often times, writing it out before approaching your employee can help you clearly define the problem and devise a plan for how to change it in the future.

What would you do with your life if you had more time to enjoy it? Between the demands at the office and the home, everyone gets stretched thin. Add in the important factors of professional associations, non-profit boards, children’s schedules, and the ever-present unexpected twists of a busy life, it can be downright maddening. Fortunately, there is a dedicated, efficient, and organized solution: the professional Personal Assistant.

Bridging the gap between the home and the office, a Personal Assistant can tackle everything from representing you at non-profit board meetings to organizing your closets. This specialized administrative professional utilizes all of the latest technological advances to maintain comprehensive calendars that merge your business, personal, and family members’ schedules – and can do it on the fly. Too busy to handle crucial errands like shopping, dry cleaning, and vehicle maintenance? The Personal Assistant can not only perform the work, he or she will also memorize your favorites and preferences, making sure that everything is done to your standard of perfection.

While all Personal Assistants are focused on making your life easier, there are different levels available to fit your particular needs and lifestyle:

The Executive Personal Assistant

Often working within the business office, the Executive PA is the pinnacle of personal assistance. Not only can this trusted right hand manage all of the duties of the typical, high-level Executive Assistant, he or she extends these services to the needs of your personal life or properties. Frequently, this includes helping with non-profits, from Board meetings to the planning and execution of large scale fundraising events. The EPA works very closely with the employer, which may include traveling with the principal for extended periods, both domestically and internationally.

Most EPAs possess extensive experience in business, often serving as an Executive Assistant for C-Level executives for many years before adding coordination of personal affairs to their repertoire.

The Personal Assistant

Instead of being attached to the office, the Personal Assistant is more closely related to the concerns of a single person or persons and their home. Ideal for anyone with a busy lifestyle, the PA is a trusted partner in meeting all of those obligations. Some of the typical responsibilities include personal shopping, event planning, calendar coordination, travel planning, and even domestic staff management. As each job is customized to meet the particular needs of the employer, the PA is the epitome of flexibility and adaptability.

Since these jobs are so unique, PAs may come from many backgrounds, such as event planners, concierge, hospitality, administrative assistants, and professional organizers. Regardless of their history, all true PAs are masters of technology, using everything from Microsoft Office programs to mobile devices to stay on top of all the demands of their employers.

The Family Assistant

For households who may not need a full Personal Assistant, a Family Assistant is a great solution. Many times, a FA may help care for older children after school, coordinating their activities and appointments. During the day, they handle the essential “business” of the home: budgets, shopping, home organization, social obligations, and home maintenance coordination. While they usually don’t perform the housekeeping or cooking beyond light housework, they do manage the staff or contractors who do.

Hiring Your New Right Hand

When considering hiring a new EPA, PA, or FA, start with making a job description. While it may evolve over time, you need to define what areas you need covered to accurately evaluate candidates. Next, think about the level of technical skills required. For example, do you need an expert with Microsoft Office and cloud computing, or can everything be accomplished with your iPad? Should they be an experienced event planner, or does errands and personal shopping fit your needs better? Depending on these requirements, your salary range should be competitive in the market to attract the right candidates.

Next, think about security concerns. When hiring anyone who will be involved with your personal affairs and family members, be sure to run complete background checks, including criminal and credit checks. Consider using testing measures as well, not only for their technical skills but also personality traits. After all, this is someone that you will be working with closely, and you want to make sure that their personality is compatible with yours.

Many times, private employers turn to specialized employment agencies to help with their search. In that case, do expect to pay a fee on top of the annual salary. However, keep in mind that these agents are experts in the private service industry. As such, they can help with every phase of the job search, from developing a workable job description to conducting comprehensive background and reference checks. Most agents are contingency-based, meaning that the placement fee is only paid when the new PA is hired. Some, like the Personal Touch Recruitment, offers retained searches as well as contingency hiring. In that case, the agent acts as your own personal HR department.

A Vision for You

Thanks to the help of a talented Personal Assistant, you gain the most precious commodity: time. Time to spend with your family, your work, and your true passions – like more golf!

About the Author

Donna Shannon is the President of Personal Touch Recruitment Services, a boutique agency that helps private employers find and onboard elite professionals such as Personal Assistants and Household Managers. For over 10 years, she has worked closely with the luxury lifestyle management industry, both as a recruiter and as a career coach for private service professionals. To find out more about Personal Touch Recruiting and all of their services, please visit:

Season to taste with personal flavor to capture your unique personality.

Garnish with cover letter and serve to potential employer.

All metaphor aside, a good resume starts with a basic understanding of what goes into making one. When writing a resume, most people ignore some essential elements. Just like a failed soufflé, missing the essential ingredients will make the resume fall flat. Without the right key words, it can’t pass the screening process. Not enough spice and it will bore the hiring managers.

Don’t forget to do a taste test before sending your resume out to potential employers. Show it to colleagues, friends, and family to get their opinion. Remember to put more credence on the opinions of people within your industry, but multiple reviews can also spot the simple grammar or spelling error that can ruin a resume. If you are working with a recruiter you trust, they can provide some guidance as well.

Remember, your resume should be a representation of you on paper. You want the employers to savor it, not just screen it. While key words can get you through the door, you still have to impress the hiring manager with your relevant knowledge, skills, and experience to land the interview.

Founded in 2015 and located in Palm Beach, FL, Casa Bella Residential Staffing offers hiring solutions for every role within a private estate, from the Estate Manager to domestic staff roles. President and founder Isabel Marques has over 15 years of combined experience successfully placing household staff in fine homes across the nation, and working in private homes providing Personal Assistant and Estate Management Services to high net worth families.

Isabel has successfully placed household staff in some of the nations’ most prominent homes, including several clients within the Forbes 400. Because of her experience on both sides of the industry, Isabel’s understanding of client needs and candidate experience often results in the perfect fit.

In today’s Agency Spotlight, Ms. Marques tells us more about what makes her agency unique…

1. How long have you been in business?

Nine months [as of October 2015 – Ed.], however, my business partner and I have over 20 years of experience in residential staffing and private home experience.

2. What makes your agency unique?

Our team is comprised of professionals with experience as successful placement specialists and private service professionals. Our security team has extensive experience working within the finest estates and homes across the United States. This knowledge and expertise gives us a unique understanding our clients’ needs as well as our candidates’ experience.

3. What types of positions do you place?

All Household staff positions, including Executive and Estate Security, Director of Residences, and Chief of Staff

4. What is your ideal candidate?

Casa Bella Residential Staffing requires each candidate to be professional, discreet, and trustworthy and work with the highest level of integrity. Additionally, they must have verifiable references and must have a minimum of two years full-time professional domestic experience that is relevant to the position they are seeking.

5. Do you place across the country or locally? If so where?

Nationwide.

6. Do you look for any special training or certifications, such as college degrees, private service schools, etc.?

Special training and college degrees are essential for some positions, however, previous professional domestic experience relevant to the position they are seeking is equally important.

In the modern job search, an up-to-date resume is an absolute given. However, plenty of job seekers still cling to some of the techniques that became obsolete 10 to 15 years ago. Is your resume making any of these old fashioned errors?

The one page resume myth

Unless you are an entry level candidate, the one page resume is not going to support your job search. This really changed back in the 2000, when online job searching sites like Monster and CareerBuilder became the standard. Due to the online application process, even the tightest formatting would be converted to text, forcing the resume into a multi-page format. While online applications and Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are more sophisticated now, recruiters and HR have come to accept the two page resume as standard.

Modern key words

HR relies heavily on key words to help them screen applicants for just about any job. Even smaller companies can now afford the next generation of ATS, making the screening process more common than ever. For these reasons, job seekers must make sure that they are using key words – and be certain that they are the modern version of those key words.

I know of one Controller who was having difficulty landing a new job, in spite of the fact that she had several years of relevant experience. When we evaluated the key words in her resumes, she repeatedly used the term “periodic close.” However, when we compared recent job postings, the term had changed to “financial close.” While these terms technically mean the same thing – closing the books at the end of the month – one of them was the old fashioned phrase. When she changed the key words to match the modern “financial close,” she suddenly began landing interviews.

Looking for modern key words is easy: always conduct an analysis of multiple job descriptions to make sure you use the current language trends for your industry.

Using Word templates

One of the biggest problems with the pre-built templates from Microsoft Word is that they are constructed with tables. While this looks good on your computer or when you print it out, they are a curse to online applications.

Why? It’s simple. Computers don’t read like humans.

Whenever the computers view the tables, they read all of the first column DOWN, and then over. As humans, we read the rows ACROSS and then down. So the final result is that your data gets mangled in the computer. If you’ve ever uploaded and resume and the preview shows all of your dates separated from your actual work experience, the ATS just choked on your table-based resume format.

PDF vs Word: what’s the best format?

Technically, this is a trick question: both are required for an effective job search.

A new trend in recruitment is to allow applicants to apply to jobs from their phone or other mobile device. In this case, using the PDF version makes sure that the format will hold true no matter how the receiver views it. Plus, many ATS now are intelligent enough to accept a PDF and be able to analyze the key words, experience, and education.

However, the Word resume is not dead yet. While many current ATS can handle the PDF, companies still use the older versions that require the Word document to parse the information correctly into their database.

So which should you use? Read the job posting carefully and make sure that you submit your resume in whatever format they tell you.

Keeping it fresh

Every couple of months, make sure to read through your resume with a critical eye. Are the key words still effective? Are the descriptions of your experience engaging and written in active voice? Are you addressing any of the current trends in your industry?

Your picture: on social media sites like LinkedIn, profiles with a picture gain a significantly higher amount of views. However, that picture can be either the kiss of death or the start of a professional relationship. With so much riding on this first impression, how can you be sure that your picture is conveying the right image?

www.PhotoFeeler.com is a website that allows users to upload a photo and gain insight from other users on key components on their first impression, specifically on competency, likability and influential factors. You can do a quick, free test by earning credits by voting on other people’s photos as well. Each picture you review earns you credits, which you can then use towards your own evaluations.

Common picture mistakes

I know that as a career coach, I cringe when I see people with a LinkedIn profile with a bad picture. Some of the most common offenders are:

Poor picture quality, either in resolution or lighting

Bad framing – a full body shot of someone standing on a mountain trail doesn’t allow me to see the face

Wrong clothing choice – it’s not a good idea to use something too casual or a stuffy wedding reception photo

Group pictures – in this case, no one can really tell who is the right person for the profile

Extreme close-ups – these can make the viewer uncomfortable as a good portion of the face is hidden

Selfies – rarely are these the best choice, especially if it’s the mirror version or “duck face”

Disembodied limbs – if the other person is cropped out but there arm is still around the subject’s shoulder, that comes across as very unprofessional

Invest in your pictures

In most cases, spending a little money to get a professional headshot done is well worth the investments. Many photographers can do this for $75 – $100. Just make sure you get the digital rights so that you can use them online without paying royalties later on.

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After several months of careful editing and revisions, we are finally ready to release the 2015 edition of “The Guide to Private Service Agencies and Educators.” Featuring over 20 agencies, major schools, and notable educators in the luxury lifestyle management, this guide is a valuable resource to anyone looking for a job in the domestic services industry, from nannies to estate managers and everything in-between.

Private Chefs Club is a domestic staffing agency for chefs only. They are the only chef placement agency that provides extensive coverage throughout the whole duration of the placement.

More than just an agency, PCC is a network for private chefs and estate managers that provide direction and guidance for any situation. Some of the services offered include menu development, specialty diets guidance, nutrition information, event planning, party staff employment, consulting on equipment purchasing and pricing for custom kitchens, and much more.

Founder Shlomi Biton tells us more about this unique and new agency in this month’s spotlight:

How long have you been in business?

We were established in April 2015

What makes your agency unique?

The private chef club is a domestic placement agency that is designed to be a network for chefs any their employers. We provide extensive coverage about anything related to operating in a domestic environment. We do in-house training for all of our chefs before placing, going over all subjects involving the position. On top of that, we come into our client’s house and streamline their kitchens as far as structure, equipment, cleaning and organizing so that our chefs will have everything they need to preform at the highest level and according to budget.

Here is a list of consultation subjects we cover:

Menu planning

Special diet planning end execution

Nutrition facts and structure

Equipment purchasing

Party planning

Hiring of party professionals

Shopping guidance

Traveling planning

And much more!

What types of positions do you place?

Long and short term private / personal chefs for the estate and on yachts.

What is your ideal candidate?

A creative and well-versed culinary graduate with clean record all around, and a minimum 5 years’ experience in a domestic setting. They should be well spoken and possess solid references.

Do you place across the country or locally? If so where

Currently we are only in southern California.

Do you look for any special training or certifications, such as college degrees, private service schools, etc?

Yes. Some college experience is helpful, and culinary arts program is a must.

Where do you announce your open jobs?

I have a large date base of chefs already in place, but I also use social media and a few professional websites as well. Many of our positons are posted on our website.

How should a candidate apply for a job? Do you want an online application, resume or both?

We will accept both the application and / or resume through our website.

Awarded the DEMA Agency of the Year award in 2012, Distinguished Domestics is highly respected in the industry. Located just outside Beverly Hills, California, they are an agency for professionals that truly enjoys the work they do. Respect is the name of their game, and Elise Lewis was kind enough to tell us more about her agency.

1. How long have you been in business?

I started my first agency in Los Angeles in 1988, pre computers and before anyone had ever heard of an Estate Manager. After the birth of my third child I decided to sell the agency. One year later, in 1990, I opened Kensington Nannies, Ltd. which is still in existence and the parent company to Distinguished Domestic Services.

2. What makes your agency unique?

I think what makes our agency stand apart from the rest is the passion that I have for what I do. Coming in to the office each day doesn’t feel like work to me, I truly enjoy my profession and would not trade what I do for any other job. I treat each candidate with the utmost of respect regardless if they are applying for a housekeeping position or a $250K Estate Manager’s position. I value the experience that each professional has acquired over their years of working at private residences. When meeting with candidates, I give them my undivided attention so that I can truly get to know them and make a long term placement for them. In addition, I have a very loyal longtime client base, most of whom refer other clients; I have a large “word of mouth” reputation in Los Angeles, which I feel blessed to have. At this point in my career and based on my years of experience, I try not to work with a client who I know will be trouble and treat their employee’s unfairly. Also, after years of experience in this field, I am not intimidated to ask details concerning the “vibe” of the Employers demeanor and the working environment. I am a true employee advocate.

My ideal candidate is someone who truly enjoys their line of work, is honest, has great references and is willing to commit to a long term placement.

5. Do you place across the country or locally? If so where.

We place all over the country for our clients who are willing to pay relocation; it is usually for the big jobs on an Estate (Estate Managers and/or couples). Most of our placements are in Southern California and primarily in the Los Angeles area.

6. Do you look for any special training or certifications, such as college degrees, private service schools, etc.?

The degrees/certificates that each candidate has are always a bonus. We do not require them as criteria to register with us. However, we do receive specific requests attached to the job order from our clients who may require certain education be mandatory for eligibility. Our requirement to register with our agency is a minimum of three years’ experience in the field in which you are applying to, with verifiable references.

7. Where do you announce your open jobs?

We post them on our website and occasionally we will put them on LinkedIn and/or send out a tweet. For some of the national searches, we also post on the DEMA website, The Caretakers Gazette website and The Domestic Herald website.

8. How should a candidate apply for a job?

Do you want an online application, resume or both? We have a form on our website that a candidate can fill out which we check daily, if they meet our requirements then we send them our full application. It is always best to send us a resume as an email attachment. If they are already a registered applicant, they can either call our office or send us an email.

9. Do you belong to any professional associations?

We are a member of DEMA (Domestic Estate Managers Association) and we were awarded The Agency of Year award in 2012. I have also attended conferences for APNA (Association for Professional Nanny Agencies) and INA (International Nanny Association).

10. How can people contact you?

We are in the office every day Monday – Friday 9am-5pm. We welcome phone calls, but would prefer receiving an email with a resume prior to a phone call. In today’s day and age, emails are a 24/7 thing.